


Days Like Spring

by ThunderStrikesTwice (ThunderDownOnGreenside)



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Datesana - Freeform, Fear of Death, Fluff and Angst, Hints of Datesana, KojuHan, M/M, Seasonal thoughts, Terminal Illnesses, Weather, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderDownOnGreenside/pseuds/ThunderStrikesTwice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In truth, most days are like spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Like Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Another, less depressing KojuHan fic for my friends (I am still so mad at you guys for doing this to me JDBFKSDGGSHFHKSJ)

Spring is his favorite time. 

 

That's when all the flowers start to bloom again, colors bursting with health and liveliness so long hidden by winter's heavy touch. _"Winter is cruel in Oshu."_ is what Masamune always says, and he's right, of course. These days, the One-Eyed Dragon tends to spend more time at Kai than he does at home, but it can't be helped. Snow is snow and his lord is most certainly not a fan of it.

 

But spring...Oshu is beautiful in the spring, and Kojuurou loves to see the way that the fresher weather literally _breathes_ life back into things, brightening colors and straightening backs and soothing tortured lungs. Springtime is walking time; idle strolls along garden paths, easygoing trips to the fields, careful steps along wooden porches shaded by blooming Sakura trees. He used to be a lot more active, but time has certainly reminded him to slow down more often, something only assisted by the presence of another who never really had a choice in the matter.

 

_(It's a miracle that he's lived this long.)_

 

Summer is even better, because that's when the younger creations of spring mature and take up their true purposes. Crops flourish, plants grow huge and green, and the buzzing summer night air is always more than enough to remind the younger warlords to let loose with more than just their blades. (Kojuurou can still remember when Masamune first tested that out with Yukimura, throwing an arm over the Tiger Cub's shoulders and inviting him over for a few rounds of sake. They'd disappeared not even ten minutes later, and Kojuurou really isn't sure what had gone down after that, only that they'd been nearly inseperable ever since. Life works in strange ways sometimes.)

 

Kojuurou is less than fond of the hotter days as it agitates respiration, but they've managed to work a more suitable arrangement out by now.

 

_(Sometimes he almost gets a little frightened at seeing how thin he is underneath damp clothing.)_

 

Autumn is more like spring, just a different kind of life-giving. The colors are vibrant in shades of auburn and copper, dancing alongside roofs and fences and open doors, drifting leaves settling bright and cheerful next to ashen skin and long white sleeves. Autumn has Yukimura's colors, crimson and gold and chocolate, all warm and swirling past Masamune's form as he takes walks around the compound, hair tied back and sword always strapped to his waist. (Kojuurou knows that the colors remind him of the Tiger Cub, can see it in the way that blue-gray eyes shine as he watches the colors dance and foray alongside him.)

 

Despite its beauty, autumn holds secrets for Kojuurou, ones hinting at treachery lurking just around the corner. This season brings the cold snaps, the sudden chills that bring the longer coughing fits, the deeper shudders, the more unsettling stillnesses. It wears its colors like a mask.

 

_(Maybe that's why the other likes it so much.)_

 

Winter comes too fast, seeming more and more dangerous with each passing year. The fields are empty; the colors sag and wither away, leaving nothing but bleached skeletons of trees and a faded body in his bed. (Masamune always leaves around this time, departing for Kai's more forgiving weather and warmer hospitality. Yukimura will be more than happy to receive him, Kojuurou is sure; it's hard to tell these days, and his lord is always so cryptic about his personal life, but he swears that their relationship has far exceeded anything that he'd ever expected.)

 

The freezing weather is a fierce contender for life, slipping in under cracks in doors and gaps in clothes, sneaking around until body heat is the only true thing keeping them warm and easing the deep, shaking coughs that tear through his body after any intake of sharp, chilled air.

 

_(It's hell, that's what it is.)_

 

But after winter comes spring again, the gentler weather with its easy sighs and careless radiance, giving back the strength that winter stole from them. The fits begin to ease again, the shakes diminish and the breaths come easier; his skin gets warmer, his smile a bit wider, his kisses less fearful.

 

_(Once, he worried that it was contagious, but Kojuurou informed him that it didn't matter.)_

 

Spring leaves behind longer nights spent awake, talking softly and staying close. It speaks of skin highlighted by the warm glow of candles, of faces upturned towards the stars on clearer nights. It speaks of Masamune returning from Kai one particularly perfect day, a big smile on his face and a white sash tied around his upper arm. It speaks of sunlit gardens, of brewing tea leaves, of crinkling scroll paper. It speaks of their pasts but never their future; they know for fact that soon enough they will be spending it apart.

 

 _"I am not immortal, you know."_ Hanbei had reminded him one frightfully cold evening in winter, blankets drawn up around him and looking on the verge of death. _"Every man must die soon enough."_

 

At the time, he'd already known that but hadn't been prepared for it. That had been their first winter together...the fear of it had surprised him. Now he still knows, and he's certainly more prepared -

 

But will he ever truly be ready for the death of someone that he loves? Kojuurou thinks not. But despite the doubt, despite the inevitability of it all, they'll still try for now, Hanbei fighting every day of his life and Kojuurou doing what he can to stay beside him.

 

In truth, most days are like spring.


End file.
